“I’m in the same boat as you,” wrote an emailer after my recent column on stress. “If you happen to discover a cure–a pill that stops a person from worrying–please let me know. I’ll help you market that sucker and we’ll both get rich.”

I wished it could be as simple as that. A magic pill that stopped worries. A button to push to stop stress. A solution that didn’t require months in a gym or on a therapist’s couch.

And crazy as it sounds, I just might’ve been granted that wish.

I found it in the pages of Reader’s Digest, in one of those articles I usually skip past, expecting it to be yet another how-to on something so obvious you’d have thunk it didn’t need said.  (”How to enjoy chocolate!” “Ten great, new ways to thicken your thighs!”)

But a few random phrases seemed to leap off the pages, piquing my attention.

“More energy. Fewer illnesses. More sleep. Higher immune response. Less likelihood of being plagued by stress.”

And the one I found most appealing. “Takes just a few minutes a day.”

In the article, “The New Science of Thank You,” (October 2007), author Deborah Norville explains how researchers studied test groups to determine if gratitude plays a role in a person’s physical and emotional well-being. Once a week, one group spent time focusing on the negative experiences they’d had in the past week, while the other group spent an equal amount of time concentrating on the things that made it most pleasant.

I was just about to chalk the research up as another in the “Well, duh” category when I got to the part about the people who focused on the positive having more energy.

You see, having more energy is something I crave. It’s high up on my wish list, sandwiched between Having Only One Mortgage Payment and Fitting in a Size 8 Without Sacrificing a Limb. I continued to read.

The researchers, Emmons and McCullough, took their study a bit further by having their test groups focus on hassles or blessings on a daily basis rather than weekly. Participants also recorded any alcoholic drinks they had during this time, if they took any pain medication, and the quantity and quality of their sleep.

The results among the gratitude group were undeniable. “The people who focused on gratitude were just flat-out happier,” wrote Norville. “They saw their lives in favorable terms. They reported fewer negative physical symptoms such as headaches or colds, and were active in ways that were good for them. They spent almost an hour and a half more per week exercising than those who focused on hassles. Plain and simple, those who were grateful had a higher quality of life.”

But more than the power of positive thinking is at play. There’s actual science behind it. Psychologist Alice M. Isen, a Cornell University professor, explains that expressing or recognizing appreciation triggers a release of dopamine, the chemical in the brain that’s associated with happiness. “It activates the parts of the brain in which complex thinking and conflict resolution are thought to be headquartered.”

A hypothesis that seems logical enough that it just might be legit.

So how does one access the power of gratitude? According to the article, just thinking grateful thoughts isn’t enough, at least not for hard-core neurotics like me. To get the maximum benefits, you must write it down.

The researchers recommend spending a few minutes a day–bedtime works best–to write down three things that happened that day for which you are grateful. Any little thing that made you feel good, even if it was just for an moment. The chocolate-iced donut with sprinkles a coworker left on your desk. The happy dance your dog did when you stepped through the door. The feel of clean sheets on the bed.

After writing down those three things, take a minute to consider why each made you feel good. You can jot that down, too, if you’re so inclined. The important thing is to be consistent, to do it every night, to make it part of your routine. It will help reprogram you into looking at life in a positive way, to notice those who add to the quality of your life and to see what’s going right instead of focusing on the things that went wrong.

My husband and I have made a pact to give it a try. Before long, we should begin to notice that we have more energy, fewer illnesses, better sleep. Less stress.

As I write this, I realize this solution seems so simple and obvious that it very nearly qualifies as a Well, Duh. But that’s okay. After all, we have nothing to lose but our stress.

When an old friend of mine retired her thick-topped table from dinner duty, she moved it to a spare bedroom, where it served as a work surface for rolling out patterns. Her busy transfer wheel scored the tabletop until the marks resembled tracks left in sand from hundreds of little crabs, except these marks were deep in places, gouging through the table’s protective polyurethane coat.

It was one of those moments all parents dread.

I knew it was coming, knew the lingering luck that had carried me from grades K through four had likely run low, but I never expected it to happen so early in the school year. Certainly not on her very first homework assignment.

“Can two be an array?” my fifth grader asked.

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking,” I said, my mind quickly skimming its index of rays. X-ray. Rachel Ray. Manta ray. Dough ray.

No uh-ray.

“It says to list all the numbers up to 20 that can be arranged into arrays with two rows. The only one I’m not sure about is 2. I don’t know if 2 can be an array.

“Sounds like a good question for Geoff,” I said, hoping for a successful deflection. “You know how much he likes it when you ask him math questions.”

“Already did,” Celeste said. “He wasn’t sure. Said I should ask you.”

I detected a hint of smug satisfaction, the kind some children get when a parent is unable to provide a quick, confident-sounding answer to a homework question. If only I could go back and simply say, “Yes. Of course two can be an array.” Oh, how she’d be respecting me now. How she’d be looking up in admiration.

And how she’d be mocking me the next day if I were wrong.

“Let me think about it a few minutes,” I said.

“Going to try looking it up on the Internet, aren’t you?” she asked, one eyebrow knowingly raised.

“Oh, ye of little faith,” I said. “I actually happen to be going online so I can redraw my will.”

She waggled her fingers and made an exaggerated O with her mouth, her standard I’m-oh-so-scared look. 

I suspect it was a moment much like this that inspired some television executive to come up with that ‘Are you smarter than a 5th grader’ show, the one where adult contestants must correctly answer ten questions taken directly from textbooks of first through fifth graders. When the grown-up is wrong or chooses to end the game, they have to admit to the audience that they’re not smarter than a fifth grader.

They usually aren’t. I haven’t seen that many episodes, but in the ones that I have, the grown-ups haven’t done well. Much to the delight of the fifth graders they have on the show.

My own fifth grader flopped her homework sheet on the table before me. “All these you see here are arrays,” she said, each word carefully enunciated and spoken painfully—mockingly—slow. I sat and listened as she continued her explanation, and as she did, out came the answer to her own question.

“You know, sometimes we grown ups play dumb so that our kids are forced to learn how to figure things out on their own,” I said.

“Nice try,” said Celeste, hopping onto the long, wooden file cabinet next to my desk, unready to relinquish what she believed to be her upper hand.

“King Phillip called out for green soup,” she said. “My brother found amazing rocks. Do you know what those are?”

“Arrays?” I answered hopefully. She laughed, shaking her head.

“Then I say they’re bizarre sentences completely unrelated to anything we’ve been talking about,” I said.

“They’re called mnemonic devices,” she said. “They help you remember the order of stuff. The first letters of each word of the King Phillip one helps you remember the organization of living things. Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. The brother one is for the order of vertebrates. Mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles.”

I don’t need to be on a game show to find out if I’m smarter than a fifth grader. Much as it pains me to this, I’m apparently not.

Celeste and I took the dogs to Valley Park Wave Pool’s annual dog swim, and man, was it ever an event. At the other dog swims we’ve attended, there have been maybe 20 to 30 dogs. At this one, I haven’t a clue, but the parking lot was completely full and people were even parking down the sides. I’ve never seen it that crowded before.

The most amazing part, to me, is how quiet it is. Hardly any barking except for a few occasional happy yips or woofs, and no dog fights or even little scuffles. It’s shocking that such a huge number of animals can be together like that without something happening, but the whole time we were there, everyone seemed to be on their best behavior.

 Labs and goldens are always the most fun to watch. Several were diving together off the side of the deep end, then would swim side by side, jointly carrying a thrown rope.

Murry is a shallow-end wader. Once the water touches his belly, he retreats. Chewie, however, was a paddling fool, determined to follow Celeste no matter how deep she roamed. The absolute joy so many of these dogs (and their owners) showed makes me wish there were more events like this where dog lovers and their pets could get together.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT GEOFF AT fuller.geoffrey@gmail.com.